Ensnared By Hair
by Broadwayfreak5357
Summary: Quick one shot from a Tumblr prompt: Pippa washes Hecate's hair and is fascinated by the length of it. Love and reviews are welcome :) 3


**A/N: Hey, y'all! There was a Hicsqueak prompt on Hecate-Hardbroom's Tumblr like…two weeks ago maybe? So I said I'd write the prompt and then I ended up adding 5+ different fics to my list, for TWW plus my other fandom that I write for — needless to say it got put on the backburner for a bit. But, hey! It's done, I'm posting it, I'm not sure this quite followed the prompt (sharing a bath and Pippa being fascinated by the length of Hecate's hair) and I'm not really that pleased with the ending, but I hope you guys enjoy anyway** **Please let me know what you think!**

Thunder cracked across the angry, purple sky and seemed to make the rain worse, and the rain fell in sheets, pelting the driveway and soaking the two women. The temperature plummeted in a matter of minutes, and the air was so cold Pippa Pentangle could see her breath.

She inwardly smirked as a childhood memory popped into her brain. She'd wanted to work on a spell to temporarily become a dragon, and breath smoke and fire like the ones she'd read about in her storybooks. But her mother insisted that "good, ladylike witches do nothing of the sort," so she reluctantly shelved her childhood wish of transforming into a winged creature.

The length of that memory was enough time for her and her partner to tiredly stagger to the door of Cackle's Academy, and she saw Hecate wearily fumble for the brass key.

A moment later and the women were safely inside the Great Hall, albeit dripping water all over the stone entryway.

Pippa closed the door firmly behind her and sighed. It'd been a long day, but she'd been with her best friend, her person, the woman who made everything right in the world, so all would be well.

She turned around from her place at the door and the sight of her gaunt, bedraggled, eerily silent girlfriend took her breath away. Whenever Hecate was stressed or overwhelmed with feelings and emotions, she would seemingly shut down — it'd even been a struggle to get her to eat lately, ever since the news of Miss Bat. But Pippa was confident that today was just the closure the dark haired woman needed to be able to move on.

Her girlfriend would usually materialize the couple around the castle, but didn't seem to be up to it, so Pippa swiftly cast a few warming spells, which seemed to work now that they were out of the elements, and materialized them straight to Hecate's chambers.

Pippa knew that her love had special privileges stemming from her deputy headmistress status, like a beautiful sunken-in tub in her bathroom — and she intended to take full advantage tonight. It being summer term, albeit a cold and rainy summer, the castle was empty for a few months as all of the students and faculty had returned home. Hecate didn't have a home to return to, so she usually spent her summers roaming the castle and soaking up the peace and tranquility. The pink-clad witch had plans of her own, to ask her brilliant girlfriend to move in with her, but she decided she would bring it up later, toward the end of summer.

Shedding her clothes without a second thought, she entered the bathroom and turned on the tap as hot as it would go. Pippa turned back around to see her Hecate standing rather awkwardly in the door of the bathroom, clad in her saturated black clothes.

"Hiccup?" After the emotional day they'd had, she knew her girlfriend would be a little off center and secretly wishing for someone else to take charge. Luckily for her, Hecate was dating an extremely strong willed, decisive woman who knew just what she needed. Hecate usually couldn't help but smile at hearing her nickname, but Pippa wasn't getting any response from the solemn-faced woman today.

"Hiccup, love? Let's get you out of these wet things and into the bath to warm up. Come on, now," Pippa said soothingly, chivvying her girlfriend straight into the steaming bath.

Pippa was right on her heels and quickly followed Hecate into the bath, sliding backward to cradle the taller witch from behind. She felt the hot water envelope her body and sighed in relief. _Warm._

Pippa knew Hecate would talk when ready, so she sat quietly in the tub, placing random kisses on the other woman's neck and shoulders. After a few minutes of tracing patterns and "I Love You's" with her fingertips onto her love's long legs, she could feel Hecate begin to come back to herself.

"It was a lovely service," Pippa said, not so subtly trying to draw her partner out.

She felt Hecate exhale slowly as she grasped one of Pippa's hands and linked their fingers together.

"Yes." Hecate said quietly. "It was a very lovely service. Miss Bat would have been pleased."

The pair sat a while longer, and Pippa made sure not to let the water get too cool. She could feel Hecate almost visibly struggle with how to proceed — like she always said, emotions were not her strong suit. She rarely did _feelings_ ; always saying the word like it was dirty.

"I'm going to miss the old Bat," Hecate mused.

Lost in thought, Pippa only heard the last bit of her girlfriend's quiet statement. She hummed noncommittally, hoping Hecate would continue to talk, and wrapped her long legs more snugly around her middle, pulling the other woman close.

"Sometimes I thought she was insufferable, like the rest of my esteemed colleagues, but…" Hecate trailed off, unsure of what to say next.

"Yes?" Pippa queried, rubbing soothing circles on Hecate's shoulders.

"I really am going to miss her though," Hecate said sadly. "I can't believe she's gone."

Pippa squeezed her girlfriend's shoulders sympathetically. "I know, love. But you said it yourself; she was quite old, wasn't she? It was her time."

Hecate chuckled dryly. "Yeah, she was old indeed. I never knew how old she really was — she was very cagey about her age, but definitely old for a witch, I'd say."

Pippa felt Hecate exhale again and lean back against her, as her body finally seemed to catch up to her brain and relax after the emotional day. Pippa wrapped her arms around Hecate's chest and kissed her neck, encouraging her to continue speaking.

"I think what I'll miss most about the old witch is she was one of the only people at Cackle's who was never afraid of me," she mused. "For some reason, unbeknownst to me, she was never intimidated by me, and she gave as good as she got, which I really did appreciate. I loved sparring and bantering with her. The woman was pure sass. And she did truly care for her students, no matter that most of them slept or did other revision during her class."

Pippa felt Hecate grip her hand a little tighter, and together they began swirling the bubble-filled water around the tub.

"I'll tell you what though, I won't miss her bloody horrible chanting though. Especially when she felt the need to practice every Saturday morning at 5am," Hecate practically shuddered recalling the memory.

Pippa smiled into her girlfriend's shoulder, recalling a memory of her own.

"Hey, love, on the plus side, Miss Bat's chanting served as our own little wake-up call so I could sneak out of Cackle's and back to Pentangle's during term time. I suppose we'll have to actually set an alarm now," she said wryly.

She felt her girlfriend tense up in front of her and for a second, Pippa was worried she'd said the wrong thing, had miscalculated the moment, before she heard a loud chuckle break from Hecate's lips.

"Oh my GOD, Pipsqueak, I didn't even think about that," Hecate said as she gasped for breath, laughing too hard to support her body and leaning more heavily on Pippa. "That's brilliantly hilarious is what that is!"

Pippa sighed in relief, glad that her usually stoic and tightlipped girlfriend was letting some of her emotions loose.

Hecate reached up to scratch her head and mumbled under her breath. Pippa's attention snapped to her girlfriend's hair, mesmerized by the light glinting off the dark strands, and she must have tightened her grip on her hand, because Hecate leaned her head back to look at Pippa's face knowingly.

Unable to stop herself, Pippa blurted out: "Iloveyourhair. CanIpleaseplaywithit?"

Hecate uncharacteristically snorted with laughter as she tried to process her adorable girlfriend's request. "Ah, come again? What was that now?"

Pippa couldn't take her eyes off Hecate's black, severe bun, with wisps of black threatening to break free from the coil entirely. Slower this time, she managed to get her request across. "Can I please play with your hair? You have such…lovely hair," she said almost breathlessly. "It's so long and just…"

"What?" Hecate said, fondly with a hint of exasperation. "Spit it out, Pipsqueak."

"It's so beautiful — and it's mine," she said, rather possessively. "You're mine."

Pippa couldn't give two frogs about her own hair, messily tied up in a pile on top of her head, but her girlfriend's hair, however? She was _obsessed_. Always had been, right from the moment they had met at school. The color, the texture, the shine, the length — some people might have said she was jealous, but she was just in love, with the hair first, if she was being honest, and later with the person who the hair belonged to.

She watched as Hecate carefully pulled out a single hairpin, almost in slow motion, and tossed it to the floor. Seeing that as her cue, she began removing the hair pins one by one. Pippa could have used magic, but she _loved_ doing it by hand. She loosened Hecate's smooth tresses from the tight coil and could have sworn she actually heard the hair, if it was a sentient being, sigh in relief at being freed.

Curling the silky black strands over her hands, she started to run her fingers through the hair, sinking her fingernails into her girlfriend's scalp. And then, she did definitely hear a breathy moan that came from Hecate, who secretly loved scalp massages.

Helping her girlfriend to lie back in the bathtub a bit, Pippa cupped some soapy water in her hand and rinsed out the hair, watching the water droplets fall down her head. She shielded Hecate's eyes with one hand and gathered more soapy water to massage her scalp with, grinning in a silent victory as she heard Hecate purr in pleasure.

Obsessed with winding the hair around her fingers, watching it darken even further as it absorbed the water in the marble basin, Pippa sighed. Her girlfriend really was absolutely beautiful, and her thick, dark hair was as much of a turn on as her personality was. Caught up in her fascination with the waterlogged mane, Pippa didn't realize that so much time had passed until she was startled out of her reverie by her girlfriend, who had emitted a soft and fluttery snore. The soothing, mesmerizing, almost hypnotic way Pippa was stroking her girlfriend's hair only served to help said girlfriend nod off, exhausted by the events and the emotions of the day.

Deep in sleep, Hecate never even woke as Pippa slowly lifted her out of the bathtub. She magicked the taller witch dry, taking extra care to make sure the source of her obsession — the hair — was dry as well, and crawled into bed beside her girlfriend, silently congratulating herself for placing a warming charm on the drawn-back covers before they went into the bathroom. The two witches cuddled in bed, Hecate subconsciously snuggling closer to Pippa, and they drifted off to sleep, dreaming of many more nights together.


End file.
